A Tale of Uncleanliness
by Xaja Silversheen
Summary: This could very well be subtitled: The Trials and Tribulations of Padawans and Masters with Varying Opinions On Housecleaning. Not for the weak of stomach. Cin-Zara-centric.


**DISCLAIMER: *looks up from the mad searching of bedroom* Dammit, I put the One Ring of Unlimited Copyright Privileges down for a second and it freakin' disappears! *suddenly yowls as Gollum tears out of closet, Ring in hand* NO! ME RING!**

**Gollum owns this, at the moment. I only own Zara. I don't even own the camp experience that inspired this tale to be written... But I dearly wish I could forget it. And yes, it was that bad.**

**How so, you ask? Read on, brave reader, if ye dare...**

**)()()()()()()()()()(**

It was a quiet, peaceful morning in the Jedi Temple. Within the immense building, Jedi of assorted ages were rising, preparing for the day ahead. Younglings scampered around the creche, Councillors knelt to meditate in the gardens, Masters dragged their reluctant teenage Padawans out of bed, and Knights flocked to the training rooms for an early morning spar.

It was the very picture of peace and tranquillity in the Temple, save for one apartment...

"MASTER!"

Cin Drallig was jolted out of his morning meditations by the sound of his annoyed-sounding apprentice hollering from the refresher. "Zara? What's wrong?"

The scowling teenager poked her head out of the refresher, glaring at her Master from under her still-unbrushed red hair. "You are, that's what!"

Cin blinked. "Excuse me, Padawan?"

Zara seemed to realize that not even early-morning grouchiness would excuse her for snapping at her Master as she just had. "Sorry, Master." However, her repentant attitude only lasted for about two and a half seconds. "But still, that was _disgusting_!"

"What was?"

"THAT! How can you say that this is not the vilest thing you've ever seen?" Zara looked over her shoulder into the refresher with an expression of disgust on her face.

Now curious, Cin rose to his feet, looking over his Padawan's shoulder into the refresher. After a moment's cursory inspection, he shrugged. "I don't see anything wrong, Zara-"

"Are you _blind_?" Zara pointed at the counter and shuddered. "That is so gross!"

"What?" Cin leaned forward, looking closely at the counter. _No dirt, no toothpaste- okay, only a couple little toothpaste stains, no soap spills, only a few random hairs kicking around..._

"That!" Zara edged her finger a bit closer to the counter, pointing at the line where the counter met the metal sink. "Just... Eww!"

Cin peered closer. Now that he knew what exactly his apprentice was pointing at, he could see a fine brown line on the counter, encircling the sink. "So?"

"Master! That's so disgusting!" Zara shuddered. "Force only knows what germs are in there! And it looks horrible, and-"

"Padawan, we are the only ones who use this refresher. No one else notices."

"I do!"

"That, my young apprentice, is what we call Obsessive Compulsive Disorder."

"No, Master, we call that Concerned About Hygiene And Cleanliness! And while we're on the subject..." Zara pointed at the rest of the counter. "Look at that! Those toothpaste stains are disgusting! And everything else on this counter..." With a grimace, she pulled the toothbrush holder away from the wall. "ARGH!"

"It's only a little bit of dust, Padawan."

"A little bit? I could write my name in that! And you put your _toothbrush_ there!"

"And, your point is...?"

"That is so unhygienic! Imagine what germs are lurking around on your toothbrush that go into your mouth!"

"That's why we have immune systems, Zara."

"Yeah, but..." Zara eyed the counter warily before throwing her hands up in defeat. "Forget this- I'll just clean it."

"Padawan, I cleaned it the other day. It's fine!"

"Have you lost your mind, Master? This is NOT clean in ANY sense of the word!" Zara marched out of the 'fresher, intent on finding cleaning supplies.

Cin merely raised an eyebrow at his apprentice before shrugging and meandering off to go prepare for his first lightsabre class of the day. _Girls and their over-cleanliness. Zara'll get over it eventually._

)()()()()()()(

"This. Is. Disgusting." grumbled Zara as she scrubbed at the counter half an hour later. The first layer of brown gunk on the sink had come off with little trouble, but even Zara's slim fingers had trouble removing the deeply ground-in layers of scum. Of course, the elbow-length rubber gloves she'd found to keep her hands clean might have had something to do with that, but there was no way in hell Zara was about to remove those gloves, not with Force only knew what lurking on the counter.

_And we're supposed to clean ourselves in here. Right,_ thought the teen to herself, straightening to give her arms a break from scrubbing at the line of gunk. She eyed her Master's toothbrush, debating between using it to remove the sludge from the sink or not, before thinking better of that idea. _I think I like living more than I like having a perfectly clean sink._

Then again, the rusty stain was so nauseating...

Rolling her neck in a circle, Zara took in the rest of the 'fresher. The shower would most definitely need to be cleaned- she'd noticed a slow build-up of grime on the shower wall. And she was pretty sure there was still dirt on the shower floor from the mission they'd gone on last week. Granted, Cin had gotten stuck in what the natives called 'quicksand' and had been covered in brown muck from his chest down, but Zara was sure that the dirt should have been cleaned out of the shower before now. She sighed- _Men really do have no sense of hygiene or cleanliness._

The toilet sitting in the corner would be a monster by itself. Zara wondered if she could get Bant or Siri to come help her, before deciding against it. She didn't want to subject them to the same horrors that she was going through. Eyeing the toilet warily, she decided she'd put that one off as long as she could. With a sigh, she turned back to the counter, scowling at the rusty rim around the sink. _Force dammit, I wish it were easier to remove!_

She reached for her scrub brush before pausing and eyeing the toothbrushes in the corner. _Eh, he claims he has a nearly-perfect immune system. And this is so his fault. Besides, I'll just rinse it off afterwards. He'll never know._ She reached for Cin's toothbrush.

)()()()()()()(

Thankfully, the soap scum on the shower walls was much easier to remove than the rusty muck around the sink. Zara stood back after she'd scrubbed the last of it away, beaming at the now-clean wall before eyeing the dirt that had accumulated on the shower floor. She'd seen it earlier that morning when she'd showered, but now that she had the shower curtain pushed as far back as she could get it, the light revealed more dirt than she'd originally thought had been there. _Eww..._

Trying not to think about the overall disgustingness of her task, Zara bent over and started scrubbing on her hands and knees, making sure to reach in the corners that she was pretty sure hadn't been cleaned for far too long.

She regretted her decision to make the shower immaculate when she moved the shower curtain to clean in the corner and saw a small figure move in the shadows...

Down the hall, still some doors away from the apartment, Cin was heading up for a break between classes when he heard the scream cut through the calm silence of the Temple. He didn't need to feel the sudden, overwhelming panic through the training bond to recognize the cry. _Zara!_ He took off in a dead run, already wondering what she could have possibly found in the 'fresher that could scare her that badly.

Lightsabre in hand, he burst through the apartment door, raced to the 'fresher and saw his apprentice sitting on the floor, back pressed flat against the counter and as far away from the shower as she could get, face frozen in a mask of horror.

"Zara?" Cin cautiously reached a hand out and touched the girl's knee. "What's wrong?"

In answer, the teen pointed toward the shower with a trembling hand. Cin glanced over at the shower, but couldn't see any sign of an intruder behind the curtain. He carefully pulled the curtain away, proving to himself that there were no humanoid assailants in the shower. "I don't-" Then he saw the spider crawling along the shower floor, desperately seeking the security of the shadowy corner. "Oh, for the love of the Force, Zara! It's not even an inch wide!"

"Kill it, please?" Zara edged further away from the shower. "Please, Master?"

With a sigh, Cin brought his booted foot down on the spider. "Happy?" He looked back at his Padawan, only to see her holding out a piece of tissue to him. "It's dead already. What more do you want?"

"I'm not touching it! Can you get it out, please?"

Rolling his eyes, Cin took the tissue and scraped up the squashed remnants of the spider. "One of these days, Padawan, we're going to cure you of your arachnophobia."

"You've been saying that for years, Master!" Now that Cin had deposited his spider-filled tissue into the waste dispenser, Zara was calming down and acting like her normal self.

"I know. But you still have another nine years or so as a Padawan for us to cure you."

"Another nine years of living with a Master who doesn't believe in a clean 'fresher?" Zara sighed as she grabbed the cleaning rag again. "Great."

)()()()()()()(

The counter was immaculate. The shower had finally been cleaned to Zara's satisfaction, with no further unwanted encounters with any spiders. (Although, she was debating if it would be worth her while to make Cin do a spider-check of the rest of the 'fresher.) The broom and mop stood just outside the 'fresher door, awaiting their turn to be used. All that remained to be cleaned was the toilet.

Zara tugged the side of her tunic over her nose and wished for a gas mask. She could feel in the Force that this was about to get very ugly. With a sigh and a final, deep gasp of clean oxygen, she started to spray the high-power cleaner onto the toilet.

_It's not as bad as I thought it was going to be_, she thought after a few moments free of anything particularly disgusting. True, there was some stuff on the toilet that, had the Council seen this, would have gotten the 'fresher condemned. But it wasn't quite as horrible as she'd anticipated.

She thought all this before she lifted the seat to clean.

Cin walked in twenty minutes later to find her still dry-heaving over the garbage can.

)()()()()()()(

"See, Master? This is much better than it was this morning!"

"It does smell like there have been cleaning chemicals in here, Zara. Hey, the mirror's clean!"

"Yes, Master. Now you can actually see yourself in it."

"Huh." _Maybe I should clean the 'fresher more often_, mused Cin to himself as he surveyed the much-cleaner room. The counter caught his eye. "How much bleach did you use on this, Padawan? I don't think it's supposed to be white."

"Yes it is, Master!" Zara frowned up at the older Jedi. "There was just too much dust for the real colour to be seen!"

"Oh, it _wasn't_ meant to be grey? Fascinating." Cin looked into the shower. "I'm assuming you didn't find any more guests in the shower?"

"Thank the Force, no." Zara shuddered. "I hate spiders."

"Well, we'll work on that." The tall Master glanced over at the toilet. "Have you recovered enough from this afternoon that you can say what it was that had you in too much shock to speak for almost an hour?"

"Uh... I won't be recovered anytime within the next hundred years or so, Master."

"That bad?"

"Worse. Far worse."

"Oh." Deciding that not knowing the details would be better for him, Cin finished looking over the refresher. He was reluctant to admit that he'd been wrong, but the small room did look much better than it had that morning. He said so to his apprentice, who snorted.

"I should hope so, after everything I suffered to make this 'fresher presentable! You get to clean it next time, Master."

"I think that to be a fair agreement, Padawan."

)()()()()()(

_Later that night..._

"Okay, so maybe I do need to do more cleaning chores around the apartment," mused Cin as he got ready for bed, rolling his neck in a circle to relieve himself of the accumulated tension in the muscles. "Zara outdid herself in here." Even he had to admit, the 'fresher had begun to look a bit unpleasant.

But he was still sure that Zara was overly-obsessive in keeping the apartment clean. Surely not everyone was as dedicated to an immaculate living space as his Padawan.

With a shrug, he picked up his toothbrush and started to put on the toothpaste, only to notice something on the bristles. _What the Sith is that brown stuff on my toothbrush?_

He was quite sure there had been no rusty stains in the corner where the toothbrushes were kept. And all the rust from around the sink was gone, even in the tiny crevices.

A sickening realization dawned.

"ZARA!"

)()()()()()()(

**My therapist will be a very wealthy person by the time I've recovered from cleaning the men's bathrooms at camp. Guys, I'm sorry, but you men are DISGUSTING! And the guy counsellors complained about the women's washrooms... *ponders doing a sequel***

**Anywho, I hope you weren't too grossed out by this and feel so inclined to drop a review here, even if you do yell at me for the disgustingness of this story! (Hey, I think I just made up a word! Go me!)**

**Thanks for reading!**

**Xaja**


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